When firefighting...watch out for snails!

This week has been a bit of a different tack - from theory and classes to...theory and practical!  The first two days included basic firefighting strategy, gear, and search and rescue, and a morning of practical techniques.  

After trying on all our gear the day before, we suited up for instructions and took turns extinguishing fires with hose and extinguishers, and rescuing "Buck," our 165 lb firefighter dummy.  

I have a newfound respect for firefighters - the gear is quite a bit heavier than it looks, and we had a great and very warm workout.  We successfully rescued Buck (a group effort) and extinguished our fires, and learned a lot.  We have an awesome team to work and learn with, and we definitely had a lot of fun.

 I did learn one unexpected lesson, though...when fighting fires, it is important to watch out for snails.  Yes, snails.  Halfway through fighting our Class A fire in the container, my partner Esther and I suddenly lost water pressure.  After troubleshooting for hose kinks etc and not finding the problem, we retreated and sent in another team to continue the firefighting.  It turns out our hose problems were due to snails that had climbed up into the hoses in search of water.  Sadly, although they did successfully find water, they did not survive long after that.

 The rest of the week promises to be interesting as well, with personal survival techniques and water safety.  One week from today...we'll be on our way to Sierra Leone!